By Frank C. Girardot 

Though the dead may tell no tales, coroner's investigators were able to tell much from the bodies of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman in the early hours of June 13.

The pair had been stabbed by death. They bled profusely. By the time detectives arrived on the scene the bodies were stained by the drying blood.

Three weeks have passed since then. O.J. Simpson is behind bars. The legendary football hero has become the prime suspect. This week he will be the center of attention in the courtroom of Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell as preliminary hearing in the case continues.

By all indications, the primary witnesses against Simpson will be forensic scientists an criminologists. Men and women who know about murder firsthand - documenting the story of a homicide from a few drops of blood, some strands of hair or the subtle texture of a knife wound.

Since the Brentwood slayings, there has been renewed interest in the Coroner' Office and the science of studying life by examining death. The county morgue hasn't received this much attention since the days of former Los Angeles "coroner to the stars" Thomas Noguchi and the popular "Quincy" television series about a crime-solving medical examiner. "That's the way it always goes," coroner's spokesman Scott Carrier said, "People seem to turn to the Coroner's Office when they're looking for an answer."

Coming up with answers always begins at the scene where there has been an unnatural death.

In the Simpson case, portions of the solution were found on the walkway leading from Bundy Drive to Nicole Simpson's condominium. More puzzle pieces were found on the victim's bodies.

"What we do is simple. When we go to a scene like that one we are looking for evidence to reconstruct the manner and mode of how a death occurred," said Gary Siglar, chief criminalist for the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office. "Our focus is the body itself and any evidence that may point to the cause of death."

Fibers, hairs, blood spots and wound patterns will figure as prominent pieces of evidence in building a case against Simpson, according to Vidal Herrera, a former Los Angeles County coroner's investigator.

Herrera is owner of Autopsy/Post Services. He and his staff specialize in forensic pathology and provide expert witnesses often to defendants in similar trials.

Herrera said he was asked recently by Simpson's attorney Robert Shapiro to provide the names of pathologists who specialize in knife wounds.

"It's a part of how you refute what the prosecution might be trying to prove," Herrera said. "On the surface the evidence is the same - what lawyers make of it and how the choose to present it varies."

So on the surface there is really nothing unusual about the Simpson-Goldman case. The bloody sidewalk, the gaping knife wounds and the look of terror forever frozen on the victim's faces is the kind of thing he and other investigators see all the time.

"What the public sees is sanitized," Herrera said. "They don't smell the death or the fresh blood. They can't smell the body odor or the cologne. They can't smell the body odor or the cologne. They can't see the tears that were streaming from the victim's eyes.

"They can't see the broken branches or trampled plants that say there was a struggle. People who do what I have done get used to it . . .it's just another murder."

There is nothing that can prepare one for the confines of the county morgue. Inside, the mingled smells of disinfectant, sweat and something sweet dances through the air ducts.

The florescent lighting, stainless steel sinks and concrete floors make the building seem cold. Cracked cement walls, missing ceiling tiles and chipped plaster - scars left behind by Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake - give hints of some personality."

In one room, the property of the dead is kept under lock and key. In another, brown paper bags of clothing considered crime scene evidence are stacked waiting to be picked up by homicide detectives.

Elsewhere test tubes of blood, urine or tissue samples spin on steel plates. Later they will be examined for evidence of drugs or other chemicals. Slices of brain tissue and liver samples are kept in a large walk-in refrigerator.

Everyone and everything who comes here will go through some - if not all - of these motions. Simpson and Goldman are just two of the more than 18,000 bodies that will pass through the doors of the county Coroner's Office this year. At any one time there are more dead bodies in the county's basement morgue - or service floor - then there are people to oversee them, Carrier said.

"Needless to say there are those who are getting burned up by the pace of this job," said Joe Muto, the county's chief forensic pathologist. "Sometimes the case load is just too overwhelming but we always have to keep in mind we have just one shot - at this scene - to protect the integrity of our investigation."

The physical evidence found at the Brentwood crime scene gave investigators an accurate picture of the victims' last moments of life, according to Steven Dowell, a coroner's forensic specialist. Dowell is world-renowned for his ability to examine wounds and determine what sort of weapon was used.

"In a murder people can have all sorts of stories about what happened," Dowell said. "But the physical evidence always tells the truth."

Any cut to bone or flesh leaves behind a signature. By looking at those telltale marks under an electron microscope, Dowell can tell if the weapon was serrated, if the killer knows anatomy and if the wound came before or after death.

By examining vertebrae from Nicole Simpson's upper spine and the torn flesh and muscle surrounding the wound, investigators like Dowell determined she was killed by a specific kind of single-edged knife.

Knowing what happened and how it happened is sometimes little comfort. Coroner's investigators very seldom are called upon to answer the question "why?" - that's for homicide detectives to figure out.

"Even with all this expensive equipment we can't answer every question known to man," Dowell said. "The forensic crystal ball has not been funded yet."